a good few days

My backyard on Saturday morning:
Jett and Addy chasing each other like wild banshees.

Fallen leaves + my Kenneth Cole shoes from last season.

A view of one of the trees. Man, we had the prettiest fall this year. I've never seen my backyard so brilliant. It was so yellow (still is, but it's fading fast). Greg and I were just saying it'd be perfect if there was a red tree in there somewhere, but alas, we have these pretty yellow trees to greet us each morning.


Today (Monday) was my final day as District Manager with Sciele Pharma Sales. It's so sad to think about closing that chapter in my life, but my regional manager couldn't have made the transition any better for me. When I first started working for her, we had our share of bumpy moments (but, who doesn't when adjusting to a new boss?). Over the past year, I've come to understand her much better, and she the same. If you had asked me a year ago whether I would be sad to tell her good-bye, I would have said, "Absolutely not!" Fast forward a year, many talks, a lot of maturing (on my part) and the answer is the exact opposite: "Definitely YES!" She has become my friend, advocate, and confidante, and I'm truly going to miss reporting to her. But, I won't miss her friendship because I fully intend on staying in touch. The one thing I learned from her is that we are remarkably similar, and it's difficult to find someone as honest and hardworking as she is, so I know she'll always give me good advice.

Upon leaving, she was kind enough to write me a note and give me a notebook. Even though it's harder for her with me gone (at least for the short term), I do think she's happy for me and the decision I made. What a blessing to have had such a good company and good manager to work for!!!

In other news, Greg was kind enough to take pictures with me (and of me) on Saturday afternoon. I was running out of things to scrap, so I thought it would be a good idea to take the camera for a spin :)

We though it would be fun to do some jumping pics and Greg majorly out-hopped me.



Finally, Addy chasing her frisbee. We later lost the frisbee, so hopefully we'll go back and find it in the winter when there's not so much foliage.

After that, we went to Cincinnati to visit Greg's old college roommate...and I do mean "old." We went there to participate in his surprise 30th birthday party. We had a good time, played some Wii, pool, and had a lively political discussion, so what could be better? The only bad thing was the drive home until 2:00am.....Don't worry about me, I took a 3 hour nap on Sunday to compensate.

Anyway, the reason we drove back so late is that Greg and I both teach (separate) bible classes on Sunday morning and I didn't want to miss that, even though we had subs lined up just in case we didn't make it. I teach Natalee and Carter's class (6-24 mos) and they are a hoot!!! We're on the Moses lesson. The lesson uses a flip chart as the basic outline for the lesson, and each page of the chart has a song + activity to go with it. For instance, the first page is about baby Moses in a basket. We give them baby "Moses's" to rock and to put in a basket.

One of my favorite part's of the lesson is discussing the manna and quail the Israelites ate while wandering in the wilderness. I have a box with a cloud on it, and I drop little styrofoam pieces out of it and sing about the manna falling from the sky and God taking care of His people. The kids LOVE it! Everytime we do that activity, Carter tries to figure out where the manna is coming from. Natalee, on the other hand, surprised me and clearly identified the manna before I stated what it was. I suppose it's an easy word to say, but what 18-month-0ld do you know that can identify manna? Seriously proud of that girl!

I get to take pictures of her tomorrow morning so hopefully I'll have more things to post about this week!